It's not only blades with curved spines that naturally have smiles, and smiles don't always match the curves of the spines.
A lot of older English blades are thicker near the toe and narrower near the heal. Those blades to technically have smiles, though not uniform, and the spines are not always curved. There are also a lot of blades that have uniform smiles and straight spines.
The one you posted seems to have even hone wear, so that is probably the original shape of the blade.
Edit with more thoughts: Had the blade been altered in some way and has even hone wear, it would have either an uneven grind (i.e. sanding part of the blade to reduce the width would yield a thinner section on the razor) or the razor would be thicker if you look edge on (if part of the blade is cut off, you won't have an edge, but a thick, dull section). I've seen one blade where I thought part of the bevel was literally cut off, but never one that was sanded down from the sides.
Last edited by holli4pirating; 07-31-2008 at 12:05 AM.
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